City officials tout local hires for Bayview library construction

The construction site for the new Bayview Branch Library at 5075 Third St. (Sonja Och/The Chronicle)

Despite concerns last summer over whether construction of a new library in the Bayview was suffering from a lack of local business participation, city officials say the project is more than halfway done and has exceeded their expectations for hiring neighborhood residents.

“If we can continue at this pace, we’ll definitely be delivering on time and on budget,” said a beaming Department of Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru at Tuesday’s site tour, where he and library executives accepted a $50,000 donation from Wells Fargo to go toward a community room.

More than 57 percent of construction is being done by local firms, though a landscaping contract has yet to be awarded, said Michelle Jeffers, a library spokeswoman. The city’s goal for local business participation for the project was 30 percent.

A little more than half of all work hours are being performed by San Francisco residents and 62 percent of those hours are from workers who live in District 10, Jeffers said.

The local emphasis has come at a price. In August 2011, the Library Commission voted to raise the project’s budget from $11.8 million to $13.6 million. Project funding comes from a $106 million bond measure approved by voters in 2000 to renovate or replace city libraries.

“We had to spend a little bit more to get these partnerships to happen,” Nuru said. “As we get better and as we do more projects in the southeast. . . these guys will be ready. They’ve got some really great experiences from this library project and they will be able to carry that on to other projects in the neighborhood.”

Library Southeast District Manager Linda Brooks-Burton, who was branch manager of the old Bayview library for 16 years, said she believes the new building’s design will be more welcoming to the neighborhood of about 35,000.

“A lot of people thought the brick on the outside was so imposing and looked really governmental so it wasn’t a warm thing to look at on the street,” Brooks-Burton said of the previous branch building, which was built in the 1960s. “It felt like a bunker.”

The new building, set to open in February 2013, will be almost 2,000 square feet larger than its predecessor, with glass artwork on the outside of the building that relates to the neighborhood’s history.

“I think what I’m most proud of is that there’s total ownership, the community had a lot to say with the design of the building,” said City Librarian Luis Herrera. “It reflects the neighborhood.”